Michael Casey, chairman of the advisory board at CoinDesk, CEO of Streambed Media and a former Wall Street Journal reporter who covered global financial and economic affairs, discusses the regulatory response to Libra, in particular the letter from the US. House of Representatives Committee on Financial Services to Mark Zuckerberg, Sheryl Sandberg and the head of Calibra, David Marcus, calling on them to halt development of Libra. Casey explains why he think it would be good if the House’s concern that Libra becomes “an entirely new global financial system that is based out of Switzerland and intended to rival US monetary policy and the dollar,” as the letter put it. We also discuss the likelihood that Libra actually achieves its goal of financial inclusion for the two billion unbanked, how Facebook’s track record with privacy factors in and what smart regulation would look like.

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Episode links: 

Michael Casey: https://twitter.com/mikejcasey

CoinDesk: https://www.coindesk.com

Michael’s CoinDesk column on how smart, not heavy-handed regulation of Libra is necessary:

https://www.coindesk.com/a-monumental-fight-over-facebooks-cryptocurrency-is-coming

Michael’s CoinDesk column on understanding Libra and the Bitcoin price swings in the global economic context: https://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-facebook-and-the-end-of-20th-century-money

House Financial Services Committee letter to Facebook executives: https://financialservices.house.gov/uploadedfiles/07.02.2019_-_fb_ltr.pdf